


Everything We Are

by Zedrobber



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Angst, Feels, M/M, Sam is a picky pain, gene is bad at feelings, vague internalised homophobia because this is gene hunt and its 1973
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 18:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14574861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zedrobber/pseuds/Zedrobber
Summary: Just a short fic, Sam/Gene angst with a side of feels and a little hope :) One shot. Sam wants to know what they are and why Gene won't go public. Gene reminds him that it's 1973.





	Everything We Are

It was an uneasy balance; that tightrope between work and the privacy of home wavering with each step. 

 

Work meant fighting and fists wound tight in collars, foreheads inches apart and words slung like arrows, wounding but never fatal. 

Work meant glances across rooms and whispered promises in offices, vicious caresses disguised as anger and arms slung over shoulders after hours in the pub.

 

Work meant avoiding prolonged contact and avoiding gentle touches and avoiding each other’s eyes and avoiding speaking of anything except how much they hated each other unless it was safely wrapped and hidden in camaraderie, accompanied with a thump on the back that left splayed fingers feeling like kisses over his spine.

 

Home- whoever’s home they stumbled into at the end of the day- meant leaning into each other like drowning men, grasping and clawing at cloth and skin and hair, gentle touches disguised as lust and murmured names slipping from tongues. Home meant sleepy-eyed smiles and lazy mornings, breakfast in bed and studiously ignoring how domestic it felt. 

 

Home meant sweat-slick bodies and gasping breaths and the scrape of teeth on skin, blunt nails down spines and guttural groans and endearments dragged from gasping mouths, and the blinding, simple pleasure of being so buried in each other that there was nothing else. 

 

Gene had thought- what felt like an age ago- that work, the station and his job, were the most important things in his life; that if he could just do some  _ good _ in the city, he would be happy. Lock up the bad guys, go for a drink, drown out everything else. Rinse, repeat. And then  _ he _ had shown up, all arrogance and fight, and suddenly work began to feel skewed, unsatisfying even. It unsettled Gene, made him question morals he had stood staunchly by for years, and he realised far too late that he didn’t hate the man he was becoming- or the man who was changing him. 

  
  


Sam had thought- what felt like an age ago- that home meant 2006; that if he could just get  _ back _ , he would be happy. If asked, he couldn’t have explained how or when home had stopped being a  _ place  _ and started being a  _ person. _ How Gene had crept into him somehow, had infiltrated his bones and his blood and his head and made him feel simultaneously madder and more sane than he ever had been, even before this whole mess. It unsettled Sam, made him question why he wanted to go back at all, and he realised far too late that he didn’t hate the place he was lost in- or the man he was working for.

  
  


So they slipped into a routine- a terrifying, tightrope-taut routine, but somehow, it worked-for a while. They didn’t speak about home when at work, and they barely spoke at home, and somehow they both pretended different things in the same way. 

By the time they realised it had stopped working, that the line was blurring and the rope was wavering dangerously, it was too late for either of them to turn back, and the arguments became vicious and personal as they both tried to work out what it was that kept them coming back for more. This time, Gene had Sam pushed against the filing cabinet, fists twisted into his shirt and face so close Sam could smell his aftershave. He would know that smell anywhere- it clung to his pillows, his shirts, sometimes for days. It should have repulsed him- strong and spicy and far too liberally applied- but it was somehow comforting, all the same.

 

“Why the hell do you insist on getting on every last one of my nerves, Tyler?”

“Why the hell do you have to be so bloody infuriating? You’re a fucking neanderthal.”

“And what have I done to get your knickers in a twist  _ today _ , Dorothy? Did I not help a little old lady cross the road? Look at a kitten the wrong way? You’ve had a bug up your arse all morning.”

Sam grimaced, feeling Gene’s knuckles digging into his collarbones and not entirely hating it.

“What if I said that you didn’t have to  _ do _ anything, Guv- that your mere existence gives me a migraine. Would that make you happy?” 

“It would make me extremely satisfied with my lot in life.” Gene leaned in closer and for a wild moment, Sam thought he was going to kiss him right there in the office. “But you’ve been particularly irritating, even for you, Sammy boy, so what the hell is wrong with you?”

Sam shrugged, defeated, and slumped back against the cabinet. Gene followed the sudden backwards movement, ending up even closer than he had been, fists softening into an almost-caress at his shoulders that seemed unconscious. Sam’s grip on Gene’s arms loosened in response, thumbs stroking over the soft material of Gene’s shirt. Gene’s breath stuttered, once, almost silently, and Sam felt his anger ebb from him, forgetting why they were fighting already. 

 

“Sorry, Guv.” It came from him in a rush of air, a sigh from so deep in him that he felt lighter for letting it out. “I just- I feel strange.”

“Nothing new there, then.”

Sam huffed out a short laugh. “You have no idea.”

“I’m starting to get one.”

There was a pause where neither of them acknowledged that they didn’t need to be pressed up against the cabinet together any more, silently enjoying the heat and the reassurance of each other before they had to go back out into the world.

  
  


Sam took in a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and said without meeting Gene’s eyes.

“Guv. Gene.”

“Hmm?”

“Maybe we should- this, us- maybe we should tell the others.”

“Are you out of your tiny mind, Tyler?” Gene started to roar, only reining it in when he remembered where they were. “What a wonderful idea! Hello fellas, your DCI is  _ fucking _ your DI! I’ll get that promotion to Super in no time, I’m sure.”

“Gene-”

“I’m not done. What the bloody hell are you thinking? Is everyone at Hyde a fucking fairy? Prancing around in their high heels and slapping each other’s arses?”

“If it’s about what they’d think-”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks, you utter prat. I care about my job. I care about my city- do you expect me to sit quietly while someone else takes over and makes a hash of it?”

“It’s not illegal, even here. You wouldn’t lose your job.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be for that. That’s what they’d say, anyway. You know as well as I do that they’d make up a reason if they didn’t have one. It wouldn’t matter. I’d be pushed out of here- and you along with me. Wouldn’t look good to have us as the face of the Force.”

He stopped, frowning, his eyes somewhere over Sam’s shoulder. “We’d lose everything, Sam. Everything we’ve built. I can’t lose it all now.”

“Alright. Alright, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. You’re right.” His hands really were stroking over Gene’s arms, now; and Gene in turn was rubbing gentle circles over the spots he had bruised earlier. 

“I know it’s different where you’re from, Sammy boy. But here- you can’t just-”

“I know.”

“It’s not because I’m ashamed of you. You know that.”

Sam opened his mouth to say something-  _ you’re not? _ \- but Gene interrupted him with a quick, hard kiss, chaste by any standards but utterly daring for being in the station, the others mere meters away through those doors.

“Not a word,” Gene said, pulling back reluctantly and straightening his tie. “Come on. We have work to do.”

He paused at the door with his knuckles white on the frame, glancing back over his shoulder without meeting Sam’s eyes. “Maybe one day, Sam. Is that enough for now?”

Sam followed him with a dazed smile, dusting his shirt off as he went. “Yes, Guv.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
